How to set the expiration datetime for the cookies in ASP.NET?

Introduction

A Cookie is a small amount of text that attached to the requet and response in between browser and the server. This small amount of text can be read by the application whenever user browse it. Please note that cookie is not a good medium to store the confidential data as it is stored into the user browser.

ASPX PAGE

<p><asp:Label ID="lblTime" runat="server" EnableViewState="false" /></p>
<asp:Button ID="btnCookieSet" runat="server" Text="Set Cookie" OnClick="SetCookie" />
<asp:Button ID="btnCookieGet" runat="server" Text="Get Cookie" OnClick="GetCookie" />
 

In the above code snippet, we a Label and two buttons. Label is used to write the current date time on the page. The first button executes SetCookie server side method and second button executes GetCookie server side method.

CODE BEHIND

 
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
lblTime.Text = DateTime.Now.ToString();
}

protected void SetCookie(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// set the cookie
Response.Cookies["MyCookie"].Value = "My cookie data";
Response.Cookies["MyCookie"].Expires = DateTime.Now.AddSeconds(10);
}

protected void GetCookie(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (Request.Cookies["MyCookie"] != null)
{
string cookieValue = Request.Cookies["MyCookie"].Value;
Response.Write(cookieValue);
}
}

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SetCookie method

In the SetCookie server side method, we are setting the cookie value and setting the Expiry date of the cookie by setting the Expires property. This will set the expiry date to current date time + 10 seconds, it means that this cookie should expire (the cookie should be deleted from the browser) in 10 seconds.

GetCookie method

This method first checks for the “MyCookie”, if it is not null then get the cookie value using the Request object and writes on the page.

OUTPUT

Hope this article was useful. Keep reading ... In the next article we shall learn how to read and write multi-valued cookies in ASP.NET.

Thanks for reading.